


Red Shoes

by SugarFey



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Ballet, Character Study, Drabble, Gen, Red Room references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 14:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarFey/pseuds/SugarFey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha was never a ballerina.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Shoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashen_key](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashen_key/gifts).



> Written for ashen_key, who gave me the prompt: "Gen!fic: Natasha and ballet." And lo, a quick drabble was born.

Natalia never was a ballerina.

Her feet were bound in satin and her hair tied in ribbons, she willed her legs to be more flexible, her body to bend in the way it was told.

Dancing across gleaming boards, she practices her pirouettes and her _pas de chats,_ and the ballet mistress taps out the time, _be light, be perfect, be strong._

She learns to move her body into each role, playing the fragility of Odette, the seductive allure of Odile. She goes out into the world and slips into new skins, remembers to adjust the length of her stride and the angle of her shoulders, passes between lovers and killers both, she is Giselle in Tokyo and Juliet in Madrid, never on stage but always in time.

She casts off Natalia and puts on Natasha, not American and not quite Russian. When she moves into her own apartment in New York, she gives the place her usual touches. Secret weapons lockers, a security system of her own design, simple but stylish furniture. Decorations are minimal; a few framed prints on the walls, but she bolts a barre to one wall with a mirror. Agent Hill never asks her address and Agent Coulson asks too often, a smile on his face like all he wants is to drop by a house warming gift, but Natasha can’t bring herself to trust a man who offers sweets with one hand and issues kill orders with the other.

She tells herself she will use the barre, one day, when there is time.

Clint never asks about childhood, but a CD set of ballet scores appear in her locker one Christmas Eve. She asks Clint to drive her home that evening and smiles when he doesn’t ask to come up.

Natasha puts on a CD and sits on the edge of her bed, not moving, the overtures of her youth filling up the room. Her feet point, her legs itch.

The music skips when she stands.

 


End file.
